What the Buddha Never Taught

Book excerpt: What the Buddha Never Taught is the engaging and often humorous "behind the robes" account of life in a Thai Buddhist monastery. It begins with his arrivial and initiation into Pah Nanachat Monastery, a unique forest community near Laos which has been set up for both Westerners and Thais to practice the monastic life together. Tim Ward takes his vows, shaves his head, puts on the robes and struggles to obey the 227 precepts for monks originally set down by the Buddha over 2500 years ago. They beg for their food in the villages, they eat only one meal a day, and they refrain from harming all living things- including the scorpions, cobras and tarantulas that dwell in the jungle paths. But what happens when Westerners put on the robes of eastern religions? Hows do they respond when a villager puts a Mars bar into their begging bowls? Ward has a humorous and self-deprecating eye for the absurd. A great introduction to living Buddhism, What the Buddha Never Taught was a best seller in Canada, has been translated into four languages, and is now used as a college textbook